


icarus / falling for the sun

by minshuas



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9853979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minshuas/pseuds/minshuas
Summary: soonyoung's starlight, daylight, sunrise, sunset. he's luminary.or, wonwoo's a poet and both soonyoung and him work at the community center.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i.......didn't proofread this very well lol... forgive me   
> uh all the poetry is uh a la mine, there might have been influences from stuff but i don't think i copied anything line for line or anything it really is all my writing idk enjoy..... i am not a poet
> 
> uh hunger @ ross copperman was my entire inspo

_ luminary _ __   
you blind me—   
rob me of all light   
because you are the sun   
engulfing me.

i burn for you star robber.

.

jeon wonwoo meets kwon soonyoung at the community center in the middle of the city. the overcrowded population makes it difficult for anyone to form meaningful relationships. the usual majority are there for rehabilitation services. if someone asked, then wonwoo would admit that he’s there for rehabilitation  _ purposes _ — he doesn’t need classes for addiction or mental health issues or self-esteem problems because he was uncomplicated. all of the rehabilitation that he needed centered around the fact that he was impossibly lonely: a 25-year old, unemployed man who had no love life to speak of, no children, and came back to an empty bed each and every night. the community center gave him momentary relief from his loneliness. while he was there, he felt important because people depended on him. the children that he read to often would ask him questions and hold his hands fondly. it happened to be one of the most worthwhile experiences he had had since college. it gave him momentary purpose, at least. 

after a particularly busy two hours of answering multiple questions asked by a wide array of 7-year olds, wonwoo treats himself with the free, lukewarm coffee that the center offers its goers. kwon soonyoung is blond, slim, and drenched in sweat as he pours himself a cup of water. wonwoo cannot pull his gaze from him for the longest moment. 

he notices. “is there something on my face…?” he asks like this happens a lot to him, not the open staring, but him having stuff on his face. wonwoo’s throat feels dry, so he shakes his head, misplacing his voice for now. the stranger who will later find himself of many codenames, steps forward to shake wonwoo’s hand. “i don’t think we’ve ever met before. i try to get to know everyone around here since i’ve been working here for… like  _ ever _ .” he laughs, shaking his head as if it is unbelievable to him, how long he’s worked here. wonwoo’s never seen him before and he’s been going here for almost a year, come august. 

wonwoo forces a laugh, takes his hand, and it all feels very mechanical. “well, i’m jeon wonwoo. i read to the children every thursday, and saturdays if they need an extra reader. it’s nice to meet you.” thankfully, his voice comes out warm when he finds it again. he’s quite fond of the children that he teaches, especially because they are a bright group of pseudo-students. they always ask hard questions, especially for belonging to the sliding scale of 7-11-years old. 

soonyoung’s grip is impressively tight. his palm is sweaty against wonwoo’s and it doesn’t make him as uncomfortable as it should. “i’m kwon soonyoung. i teach a couple different dance classes almost every morning, then a couples dance class in the afternoon on weekends.” his smile is so bright that it could blind wonwoo. his lips pull back to reveal a what could be described as a weapon, or maybe pure sunlight. wonwoo finds that he doesn’t want soonyoung’s smile to stay hidden for too long. in the short time they spend introducing themselves and gathering their drinks, wonwoo discovers that soonyoung loves to smile. he probably smiles at dogs, at babies, at old men, at paintings, at songs. this is a smile that only knows how to share happiness: the genuine kind. it coaxes a smile out of awkward, shy wonwoo. 

he pushes his glasses up on his nose, collecting his drink when soonyoung drops his hand. “i like your glasses,” he comments, pointing to them for clarification. wonwoo smiles cheesily, probably. he wishes he could see himself, because he just  _ knows  _ that his black hair is untidy from where he swiped his fingers through it while reading, embodied in the character’s voice, in their emotions. 

“thanks,” he finally says. “i like your… sweat.” he jokes. “you wear it well.” 

he earns a bout of laughter from soonyoung who had been in the middle of swallowing most of the contents of his paper cup. when he laughs, he inhales, and then sputters uselessly. it’s all horribly unattractive as water gushes out of his nose and his eyes tear up, but wonwoo finds himself moving in closer, pearls of laughter falling from his mouth in waves of saltwater. he puts a supportive hand on soonyoung’s back and rubs soothingly until he’s calmed down, no longer hacking into his elbow. when he straightens up, he can see soonyoung’s smile reappear. “we just met and you are already trying to kill me.” he says, jokingly, then pushes at wonwoo lightly. wonwoo admittedly wants him to scorch his skin again in some way; he would probably beg for the contact if it wouldn’t be so incredibly weird. he’s wildly attracted to this stranger, but also wildly a romantic. taking him home after just meeting him isn’t going to work out, and it has been the reason why wonwoo has been single for so long. one night stands were just not his thing nowadays. maybe back in college, but now things were different.  _ he  _ was different. 

relationships without romance just felt ingenuine  _ to him _ . it was like he was betraying himself and his desires.  

the gift of soonyoung’s smile was worth more than a frisky, sweaty night in his lonely apartment. he thinks that if he took anyone back home there, then they would be able to tell how alone he really was over here in america. his entire family was back in south korea, probably wondering why their son up and moved to america. his usually working brain seems to forget how to make conversation, so he laughs and buries himself in his drink. 

“well, i have to get back to work. i have one more lesson to teach today.” soonyoung says, and wonwoo thinks that it sounds like he doesn’t want to leave yet. it is probably just his imagination, except soonyoung still stands there after he’s said he should be going. wonwoo’s mouth feels like sandpaper. if he moves his tongue, then it’ll come back maimed and he’ll never be able to clean up all the blood that will drip from it. “uh…” soonyoung looks away, towards where he had came from. “do you want to get lunch today? i’m free after this and i can pick you up if you want to go home or something instead of wait for me…” 

wonwoo freezes. his heart is the only organ that doesn’t catch the memo that he is turning into an ice sculpture. it beats so quickly that he feels like he might get sick. kwon soonyoung is a  _ stranger  _ to him, but his heart seems to believe otherwise. he’s excited at the prospect of a date, he tries to tell himself, but he knows that if it were anyone else asking him, he would have declined the offer. “yeah,” he replies and his tongue turns into a pile of sand between the two of them. his voice doesn’t sound right in his own ears. “we can exchange numbers and i’ll text you the address.” soonyoung nods, pulling out his phone. 

.

.

lunch turns into a regular ordeal for the two of them. every thursday both of them find themselves in a new diner, restaurant, fast food drive-thru. wonwoo’s surprised that soonyoung still had been interested after the first lunch had ended with wonwoo spilling the diner’s soup-of-the-day all over soonyoung’s lap. soonyoung is especially lucky that they don’t seem to reheat their soup because it is warmer rather than hot and he doesn’t think soonyoung sustains any type of injurious burns from the accident, but as wonwoo dabbed at the mess with thin, cheap napkins, he realized that there would never be a second lunch date and he would never live this down. 

mingyu makes fun of him for weeks. it’s in the warmest of ways. “you tried to clean soup off of his crotch, wonwoo. that’s a little strange. no one just goes for it like that. i wonder if he thought you were coming onto him.” he bites back a laugh. wonwoo only knows from years and years of knowing him. he could map mingyu out for the universe. he supposes that falling in love with mingyu would have been safe and soft, but america had been calling to him, so he left mingyu and his possibly repressed feelings for him in south korea. now, all mingyu was was his best friend. he always was a lot better in that role anyway. “did you feel him up? did he like…  _ you know _ ?” 

with his roommate across from on the couch, the cross on his neck never seeming so holy, wonwoo realizes that this isn’t the conversation he wants to be having. his face burns even though joshua doesn’t even turn his head away from the television. “no! no!” he exclaims into the phone’s receiver. “it wasn’t like that. i just… wanted to clean him off. it was my fault he was covered in it, so i felt responsible.” 

joshua stands, then leaves the room, clearly no longer wanting to listen in to their conversation. 

“well, you wasted a perfectly ripened opportunity.” mingyu says, sounding anything but disappointed in wonwoo. “are you guys going to get lunch again?” 

wonwoo shrugs, realizes that mingyu can’t see that he’s shrugging, and finally replies. “i actually… have no idea. we haven’t talked much since then, except for me apologizing again.” mingyu chuckles, probably rolling his eyes. “but i have to get going, joshua’s friends are coming over for a fancy dinner. have i told you that joshua isn’t as good of a cook as you are?” 

“yeah, you remind me every time he cooks anything. one day i’ll come visit and fix you both something, especially now that i’m out of school. i’m a real professional… certified and everything.” he’s beaming, or at least, wonwoo hopes he is. he has to be proud of himself, especially because he’s good at what he does. returning back to school for the culinary arts was just a good decision for mingyu. he had the money and he definitely had the talent. wonwoo knew that he was proud of him, at the very least. 

“yeah, yeah. you and your empty promises.” wonwoo shakes his head. “talk to you later.”

“bye, bye!” mingyu chirps and the line goes silent. 

wonwoo leans back, nearly missing the notification that he has a text message when he goes to lock his phone. joshua reemerges from the kitchen and sits politely a short distance away from wonwoo. it is comfortable, even if the both of them are not completely friends yet. joshua’s the fourth roommate that wonwoo has had. the owner of his apartment sells wonwoo’s extra room out to people who are traveling the world (or in joshua’s case, the country). he doesn’t mind it, but most of his roommates never last. wonwoo could just pay the extra money for the room, but he lets himself save that money in his escapism jar. he doesn’t know what he’ll ever do with that money, if anything, but he knows that having the jar is comforting. joshua is also his first roommate who has yet to try to steal from the jar, even though it hardly has any amount to steal from. 

**kwon soonyoung:** hey!!! can you come to a show tonight? i was gonna see it alone, but that seems lame lol…   
**kwon soonyoung:** it’d be a lot less lame w you there!!!! probably 0% lame.    
**kwon soonyoung:** plus there will be no soup there. i checked to make sure jic you decided to try to scald my junk again

“you are smiling at your phone,” joshua comments. it’s not teasing, but it also is. joshua has this way of being infinitely complicated when he speaks or smiles or does anything. wonwoo looks up from his phone, brow furrowing and frown deepening. since he doesn’t notice his own expression, he doesn’t exactly know why joshua lifts a hand up to stifle a bout of laughter, but it makes him flush. “i hope it’s soonyoung,” he says matter-of-factly. “because he  _ has  _ to be interested in you to ask you out again.” 

after the show, lunch dates resume for them. the soup incident seemingly forgotten. wonwoo is thankful. 

.

.

there’s no indication of the nature of their relationship. it seems friendly as more time passes, but wonwoo also doesn’t know if that’s just soonyoung. because of the confusion though, wonwoo refrains from acting first in any situation they find themselves in. soonyoung has the ball in his court (and he has had it since the soup incident). the attraction is still there for wonwoo, but he’s not sure that it is reciprocated in the slightest. soonyoung gives no hints to him other than the few flirtatious texts that wonwoo shows joshua and mingyu like they are teenagers again. “what does this  _ mean _ ?” wonwoo wonders. joshua flicks his forehead and mingyu rolls with laughter. 

“you’ve got it bad,” mingyu says one day. wonwoo has him on speaker phone since joshua is in the kitchen with him. mingyu and joshua are not familiar with one another, but ever since soonyoung walked into wonwoo’s life, both of them had been roped in for this ride. neither one of them was going to be able to get off of it anytime soon either. “are you seriously  _ making  _ him lunch since he works a little later today?” 

“i knew this was a stupid idea,” wonwoo says, putting down the broth he had been holding onto. 

“no,” joshua defends. “he’s going to love it. mingyu, shut up. he called for a confidence boost and a little bit of help with the cooking.  _ not  _ for you to mock him.” he’s chiding mingyu as though they’ve known each other for years and that makes wonwoo feel happier than he can put to words. none of his previous roommates had ever tried to get to know him before, let alone the man he always called who was half a world away. it was hard to have him without mingyu, even though they were so far away from one another. they made the distance work somehow.

mingyu scoffs into the receiver, feeling betrayed. “okay, fine. let’s get started on this cooking thing then.” 

wonwoo isn't the best cook, neither is joshua, but with mingyu’s guidance, they manage to recreate the soup that he had spilled onto soonyoung’s lap. it’s supposed to be wonwoo taking the ball into his court, but he’s unsure how to proceed after he has it. joshua thinks this is sweet, and it isn’t too forward of wonwoo. mingyu thinks it is a little weird, but he holds cooking as a passion rather than just a hobby. 

soonyoung loves the soup, is too appreciative that wonwoo has taken time to make and bring him food at the dingy, old community center. once again, he’s covered in sweat, but wearing it well. when he takes the thermos, his fingers brush against wonwoo’s skin and he feels as warm as he did with the thermos held in between his hands. “thank you,” he says, then freezes as though he’s unsure what to do next, what to say. “let me make it up to you? dinner at my place tomorrow night?” 

“i’d love to,” wonwoo returns soonyoung’s smile easily. 

.

.

dinner reassures them of their mutual interest in one another. it is definitely a romantic interest, because two grown men do not have candlelit dinners together. if they do, then wonwoo needs to let joshua and mingyu in on the secrets of adulthood that they are apparently not privy to. soonyoung doesn’t try to hold his hand nor does he kiss him goodnight, but both of them feel the shift in the atmosphere. it supplies optimism, relieves an imaginary pressure. 

  


_ sunlight _   
i want to dance under him in a field of wildflowers   
thorns will catch on my skin and undo me   
sunlit scorcher will bear witness to the innermost parts

of my lonely soul. 

.

“so, you are a poet?” he’s curiously examining the litterings of napkins, torn pages, and sheets of loose leaf paper. all of them have wonwoo’s neat handwriting on them, some in korean, others in english. he doesn’t know if soonyoung is actually reading any of them or if he is just admiring the sheer amount of poetry that is stacked upon wonwoo’s computer desk. there’s no longer room for a computer and the container holding his writing utensils sits precariously at the edge of the surface. he’s really got to learn to take better care of his works, especially when most of them are drafts that he wants to come back to, maybe, someday, just not today. 

he nods his head, leaning forward in his seat to steal away the ripped piece of newspaper that soonyoung is holding. “none of those are finished works. mostly just drafts that i don’t think i’ll come back to anytime soon.” he says, then shrugs. “some of them are particularly bad.” he thinks the one he’s holding is an example of that. 

“hey,” says soonyoung, drawing wonwoo’s attention away from the poem scrawled between the lines of some newspaper article. “let’s write poems about each other. just quick little poems and we’ll read them to each other.” he delivers the idea as though it is genius. wonwoo’s a little bashful, but the idea does sound appealing to him. partially it is because he’s a writer, but another part of him wants to be able to communicate with soonyoung in the way that he knows best. so, he ends up agreeing with a sharp, definite nod. 

“okay!” soonyoung says. he claps his hands together and looks around. paper is nowhere to be found, but he collects two pens easily, shoving the container back onto the desk. it will reduce the risk of it falling off when wonwoo finds himself scattering more drafts onto the desk. 

before he can ask about the paper, wonwoo’s producing a pocket-sized journal from his bag that it is seated on the edge of his bed. “i can’t go anywhere without it,” he says, ripping out two pieces of paper and handing one over to soonyoung. both of them ready themselves mentally for the task of coming up with a poem for the other. currently both of the men are in a flux, both of them unsure where this relationship is headed or what it should even be defined as. soonyoung easily calls them  _ boyfriends _ , but wonwoo doesn’t know if it is that easy for him. what they have is something that cannot be replicated. it has come too naturally, too simply. they are still a little too young and naive for the world, so wonwoo doesn’t want to jinx them by falling into familiarity. so, he doesn’t call them  _ boyfriends  _ nor does he call this a relationship. his relationship with words is too complicated. 

he would deem them bleeding suns or black holes. everything is all-consuming; everything is too much. all of it blends together in the most mystical way possible and all of it feels completely unreal. they don’t touch each other for fear of causing natural disasters, or maybe the fear of being swallowed whole by something so vast and expansive that words alone cannot describe its depth. 

soonyoung sets a timer. “seven minutes,” he says. it seems random, but wonwoo agrees with his rules. 

.

.

“you destroy me / i become supernova / my core collapses and i too / no longer exist as me.” soonyoung reads from his sheet of paper in a tiny, unrecognizable voice. wonwoo holds his breath from the moment he starts reading. it is so silly, how desperate he feels, but this is the only language he is truly fluent in. he doesn’t know what he expects from soonyoung, from a seven-minute poem, but his soul feels heavy. it weighs his body down until he’s anchored in this moment. he too is supernova as his core threatens to collapse; there is a change there. 

he’s breathless. “your turn,” soonyoung says. they’ve agreed not to comment until both of them had shared their poems. just now, he realizes how much he appreciates this rule. for a literary person, he finds himself oddly speechless. he’s never received a poem, even if just a quickly formed one. it means more to him than he could possibly communicate to soonyoung. 

wonwoo clears his throat, preparing his ‘reading voice’ that he often uses when he reads his work professionally to crowds. it’s the only way that he knows how to read poetry without getting flustered, especially when the subject of the poem is seated across from him with an expectant gaze. “wandering starlight / you crown me with light / i am king of the night / i am the moon / and i wish to burn for you too.” his voice wavers as he finishes. the poem isn’t as polished as he’d like it to be and he’s highly aware of it. he wishes that he had had longer than seven minutes, because he definitely needed longer than that to write to soonyoung, to write about him. he messes with his sheet of paper just so he doesn’t have to look up and meet soonyoung’s gaze, but luckily he doesn’t need to. 

a knee sinks into the mattress that wonwoo’s seated upon, and when he looks up, soonyoung is pushing him down onto the bed with an unreadable expression. there’s a shimmering in his eyes and wonwoo has to wonder if this boy is made of actual stardust. then wonwoo doesn’t have to wonder anymore because he’s breathing it into his lungs, choking on pure light. soonyoung’s lips are soft and they meet his again and again and again until they are bleeding into one another: souls seeming to join up together, falling into each other to create new homes. they are in sync. 

into his mouth, arms wrapped around his neck like he’s fifteen again, wonwoo whispers, “we are both supernova.” something shifts painfully in his chest. it is his heart, he’ll realize later with soonyoung’s lips trailing down to scatter kisses among every inch of his body. his whole world tilts off kilter until he is hit with the revelation that he’s terribly, horribly in love with kwon soonyoung, and then it rights itself, but everything feels different. wonwoo pulls soonyoung back up from where he’s brushing his lips at his knee. 

soonyoung laughs into his mouth, nipping at his bottom lip. “i crown you, my moon. i crown you into eternity.” 

.

.

“he stayed the night,” joshua says. their collective rule of letting each other know before company stayed over had been broken. there doesn’t seem to be disappointment in his tone, if anything, he sounds curious. “he’s very sweet.” 

wonwoo swallows, nodding. “he stayed the night,” he says. “he’s very sweet.” all of it is just echoing joshua uselessly, but he’s still reeling from it too. soonyoung is still nestled in wonwoo’s blankets, in wonwoo’s bed. it feels surreal, as though wonwoo is merely traipsing through a dream. “i think i’m in love with him.”

there might be a silent moment where soonyoung is no longer wrapped in wonwoo’s blankets, is no longer in wonwoo’s bed, but wonwoo can’t be sure of this being reality still. joshua purses his lips, then excuses himself into the kitchen. it is like watching a car crash in slow motion, but rewound. all of the pain is gone; all of the destruction never comes. soonyoung’s heart stutters in his chest and wonwoo thinks he can hear it. 

“me too,” he says. wonwoo thinks he sounds breathless. “i think i’m in love with you too.” 

  


_ sunrise _ __   
stream in through my window   
wake me with the warmth of your kiss.

you are my dawn. 

.

the sun isn’t hanging in the sky when soonyoung gives him the news. the bomb is dropped and it makes no sound yet the impact destroys the world. everything falls apart from around wonwoo, and he hates that he let himself fall into familiarity. he started to build a home in soonyoung, nesting like a bird inside his ribcage, always close to his heart. “i’m moving.” he says, and wonwoo says  _ okay _ without looking at him because he doesn’t think he can do anything else without crying pathetically. he sounds tired and they’ve only been together for a little less than a year, but wonwoo recognizes that there is something unsaid in his voice. “i’m moving  _ tomorrow _ . my parents want me to come to china. they already bought the ticket and… i already said yes.” without consulting wonwoo. wonwoo doesn’t think that he minds as much as he wishes that he could rip his own heart out of his chest so soonyoung can see the damage he’s doing. 

“okay,” wonwoo says, emptily. “let me know you get there safe.” 

that seems to be the final straw. soonyoung gathers the fabric of wonwoo’s shirt in his fists. “say something else, wonwoo-yah.” there’s insistence in his voice; there’s a need that he’s never seen soonyoung wear before. “tell me you want me to stay. tell me that this is all wrong.” he swallows, voice watery. he’s going to cry which means that wonwoo will end up crying. it feels dangerous to let any emotion control him, especially when he knows that he wants to drive his fists through the wall. he’d do anything, be anyone, to get soonyoung to stay nearby him. 

“i love you, soon-ah. i love you so much that i have to let go if you need me to.” he’s crying before he can even register it. soonyoung falters, face falling as he crowds into wonwoo’s space. then, all of a sudden, he’s pulling him into an embrace. the sobs build up in his chest as he refuses to release them. if his hands weren’t gripping at soonyoung, then he’d shove them in his mouth until he knew he wouldn’t make any noise. instead, the sobs build up into a wail that shakes the foundation of their relationship. he clings to soonyoung so tightly that he thinks he might be hurting him. 

his voice hiccups when he speaks in rushed, hoarse whispers. “i don’t want you to leave. i want you to stay. soon-ah, i’ve never wanted anything more than what we have. i’ve never wanted anything more and if you are gone i don’t know if i’ll ever see the sun again. you’ll take all the light with you.” he might sound mad, but he’s in love, he’s in love and in pain. it’s always felt the same, so he just keeps holding onto soonyoung until he can no longer, until they are both a puddle on his bedroom floor. soonyoung’s cheeks are stained with tears that mirror wonwoo’s condition. neither of them move for hours, they just lay there on the floor, spent, until soonyoung has to leave, to finish packing, to  _ leave _ . 

that night, the moon collapses, splitting straight down the middle. 

.

.

soonyoung doesn’t ask him to come to china, and if he did, then wonwoo would have declined anyway. he’s not fluent in chinese and he’s not prepared to uproot his life. he’s made his forever home in america. joshua extends his lease for another year after soonyoung leaves and wonwoo has wonders if the two actions are related in any way. mingyu visits for the first time in years and holds tightly onto wonwoo as he falls apart again and again. it’s foolish: a foolish type of love that expends all of his energy. it’s dangerous and scary, and people would advise against wading this deep into the ocean water, but the current pulls him under before he can stop himself from trekking further. 

“he still loves you,” mingyu says. 

wonwoo knows. he knows, but he still changes his phone number and chucks his old phone. 

the problem has always been that soonyoung loves him, loves him still. wonwoo must cut away at the tendons of their relationship or he risks ruining them further. there is no telling when soonyoung will be coming back, if he even will be. he makes sure that he knows that much before he gets on his flight. wonwoo knows what it is like to be disappointed, so he knows what he must do in order to sustain himself. it reminds him of all the mistakes that he made in the past, but he wasn’t going to make mistakes with soonyoung. soonyoung deserved freedom, happiness, love as bright as a thousand suns shining into eternity. wonwoo could not be his black hole. 

mingyu and him had made long distance work, but there was too much pain in having soonyoung so far away. it wasn’t fair to try to be so reliant on him, to waste the contents of his escapism jar on a person. it was foolish for him to believe that someone could build a home inside of a person. it is his own fault in the end. 

.

.

“soonyoung’s calling me,” joshua says, emerging from the kitchen. “can you please answer it?” 

wonwoo turns over on the couch, back now facing the television and joshua. it’s enough of an answer, but joshua still stands there, trying to see if wonwoo gives in. “if i answer it, then will you talk to him?” he continues, voice full of annoyance and there’s a hint of disappointment there too. “wonwoo…” there’s still no reply. he’s taken to withdrawing within himself whenever soonyoung is mentioned. it isn’t painful as much as it is gaping. there are gulfs within him that he has to stare into every morning as he brushes his teeth, or when he changes. they are so deep that they’ve fractured him. with the right movement, he could burst into a million pieces. 

there’s a huff drawn from joshua. “ _ fine _ ,” he leaves the living room. 

.

.

he leaves the living room, but not before he places his phone down on the table. through the speaker, wonwoo hears soonyoung’s voice, tired with notes of sadness. “wonwoo-yah?” he asks. “are you there?” wonwoo holds his breath, hyper-aware of the simple action. while wonwoo is busy suffocating himself, soonyoung makes a distressed noise. “i haven’t been able to get ahold of you. i don’t know if you are ignoring me or if something happened…”

wonwoo wants to make a distressed noise too, definitely wants to tell soonyoung that they’d just be better apart, but he doesn’t. he resumes breathing and turns around to watch the phone skeptically. “i love you, wonwoo-yah. i still do and if this is your way of trying to let us get over each other, then it isn’t working because i’m not getting over you.” it almost sounds like he’s crying. soonyoung’s sensitive, but so is wonwoo when it comes to this conversation. 

his voice is small when he answers. his hands are too big for the phone and his eyes are watery as he holds it up close to him, trying to feel close to soonyoung again. “i love you, soon-ah. I always will.” then he hangs up the line, silent sobs wracking his frame as he hides his face into the couch cushion. it’s painful, but it is love. he wants soonyoung to have found his home in him too, that way they wouldn’t be so far apart. 

  


_ daylight _ __   
i long to be a flower   
petals upturned towards him   
relying on him 

my sunlight.

.

he burns himself one morning while he’s cooking. things are relatively normal, except joshua treads a little more quietly around him and mingyu has claimed the couch as his new bed. “shit,” he cries out and his own voice sounds foreign to him. and it is only then that he realizes that he hasn’t spoken for almost two months. 

mingyu rushes in, eyes wide. “are you alright?” he seems erratic and wonwoo can’t ever recall seeing him like this. joshua comes in after him, brow furrowed as he starts running the faucet and sticks wonwoo’s hand underneath the running tap. both of them hover close to wonwoo. it is only then that wonwoo realizes that he might have fallen back into normalcy, but he had given up on conversation. it exhausted him more than anything, so he just dropped it altogether and found other ways to communicate to mingyu and joshua when he wanted or needed something. 

“i’m fine,” he says, licking his lips. the burn on his hand is just bad enough for him to feel the pain still. it is a phantom pain, much like soonyoung. he can still feel the ache even though the original injurious action has passed. “thank you.” he bows his head to joshua who just smiles politely in response. mingyu rubs consoling circles into his back. both of them seem relieved. wonwoo should be too, but he almost wishes that he had lost his voice. 

it is a bizarre wish to have, but he supposes that he wishes that soonyoung had taken something from him that wasn’t his heart, because he could still feel the organ beating away in his chest, so he knows it was only metaphorical. his soul was still weighing him down too, even if he felt like only half of a person now. 

he wonders if he didn’t love soonyoung enough. 

.

.

“bring him back. just bring him back. i need him. i don’t care how, just bring him back.” wonwoo has taken to begging since he’s found his voice. mingyu and joshua can hear him through the paper thin walls of their apartment, but neither of them say anything when he emerges from his room, cheeks stained with tears. it’s been almost a year now, but wonwoo is still not over him. the pain comes, then goes. he is the shoreline and pain crashes upon him in waves. some days the ocean is calmer, but today it is unkind. any ships that are sent out will end up at the bottom of the ocean.

.

.

there’s no force that can bring him back other than his own autonomy. joshua leaves him a message, asking if he can visit at least. if things can be resolved between them so that wonwoo can properly move on. wonwoo tries to text a defunct number, pleading with an empty line that he’s named  _ soonyoung  _ to come home soon and that he’s waiting for him. he begs him to understand that wonwoo has tried to wait, and he’s tried, albeit poorly, to move on. all that he wants is to have soonyoung back at the community center. he wants to transport himself back in time and tell him that if he’s told to go to china, then he shouldn’t. he doesn’t have an excuse or a reason why, except that he loves him and he doesn’t want to be fucked up like this for the rest of his life. 

he doesn’t know why he cannot get over kwon soonyoung, but he thinks it might have to do with the fact that he’s still inhabiting his lungs: piles of stardust sitting there, only stirred when wonwoo is hyperventilating, head between his legs in a desperate attempt to calm down. only stirred when wonwoo thinks about soonyoung and finds it hard to breathe, like something is clogging his lungs.  _ you did this to me _ , he wants to tell soonyoung.  _ you did this to me and i still love you for it.  _ even if he knows why soonyoung had to leave, even if he knows it is because of family, he still cannot move past this. he can forgive him, but he cannot find his heart beating the same as it had before soonyoung. he wishes he could remember what life had felt like before soonyoung. 

or well, he wishes that he could want to remember. 

.

.

the only thing that wonwoo truly has left other than joshua and mingyu is his writings. he starts to go through his drafts, shifting them into piles. he realizes that he has a pile for soonyoung only when he can see the shiny oak of his desk. it is a massive pile that rivals the other piles he has made: about adulthood, about struggle, about strife. soonyoung evokes not only feelings, but layers of those feelings. each emotion is amplified and stratified until wonwoo experiences it fully. yet whenever he is writing, he never can capture soonyoung fully. he could write paragraphs upon paragraphs of his eyes, but he would never be successful at immortalizing their beauty. he could never do soonyoung justice, because people couldn’t be captured on pages of books. no matter how firmly wonwoo pressed him there, he would never stick. 

there is no getting close to the truth of soonyoung in his writing. he’s infinite, it’s impossible to complete a picture that is unable to be captured. 

  


_ sunset _ __   
i want to be haloed by him   
but even that ethereal touch   
would burn straight through my core

world destroyer. 

.

“i am the king of the night / i am the moon / you crown me, alas / i cannot burn as you do.” he reads. the children he reads to are no longer on that sliding scale. instead they are sixteen with curious gazes and furrowed brows as they listen to unfamiliar words siphoned through their ears. they will tear apart the poetry in order to find the meaning. 

returning to the community center is for the best. it makes him feel happier and lighter. he enjoys knowing that he can help the children come to love and understand poetry. a few hands are already raised even though he’s not done with his reading yet. he takes a breath before continuing from the book before him, but it is not his voice that flows from his mouth. it is familiar and it is warm. “even so / i beg the heavens to let your light burn holes into me / my harbinger / i wish to be a home for you too.” 

“soon-ah,” wonwoo closes his eyes, tears gathering on his eyelids.a hand curls around his shoulder and lets him know this is not just some wild fantasy. it is reality: cold and real and hard. it knocks into him at full force and he almost loses his composure around his group of children. it takes him a moment to gather himself before he passes his book along to the other reader in charge and asks him to take over. 

.

.

they head towards the coffeemaker and that is where soonyoung presses him up against the wall to scatter constellations of kisses against the canvas of wonwoo’s skin. “i love you,” he murmurs, lips on his neck, then his cheek, then his clothed shoulder, wrist, hand, nose, eyelid, forehead. no expanse of skin is left unkissed unless it was unreachable. soonyoung’s mouth has to familiarize itself again. “i love you so much. i can’t do this… this distance between us. i don’t think i ever could.” wonwoo makes a noise in the back of his throat and soonyoung swallows it. 

“i love you.” wonwoo says, chasing after soonyoung’s lips. “i’m happy you are here, that you are home.” 

soonyoung nods, teeth knocking into wonwoo’s. it’s far from perfect, whatever this is, but both of them dissolve into laughter as they straighten up and separate, one last kiss sitting between them before they are hurrying to make coffee. it is while wonwoo is stirring in his sugar that soonyoung speaks again. “that… that whole book is about me, isn’t it?” his voice sounds timid, as though he doesn’t want to know the answer to the question. 

even so, wonwoo gives it freely. “yes, my sun.” he says affectionately, leaning in to nuzzle into soonyoung’s neck. “it was the only way the moon could converse with the sun.” and it sounds so simple when he phrases it like that, but it had been so complicated. “you read it?”

soonyoung laughs, tilting his head back and  __ god, he glistens . “read it? i memorized it.” 

there’s a pause, but it is comfortable for once. both of them can stand it. soonyoung is the one to eventually break it, just when wonwoo is about to say that he should get back to the reading. “by the way, you’ve always been my home too.” it makes wonwoo’s heart swell. the distance between them closes, and everything goes back to being simple. 

.

.

everything goes back to being. everything goes back. everything goes. everything.    
i am icarus and i have fallen for the sun. 


End file.
